The Real And The Absurd in Big Pharm Marketing

            Wait a minute.  Am I really seeing this?  I'm at the gym, pedaling away furiously on the recumbent bicycle and my headphone jack is plugged in to the television.  There's a commercial.  There's Kevin Nealon, an alum of Saturday Night Live.  There's Arnold Palmer, who needs to introduction.  There's a handsome young race car driver dressed in his jump suit.  And there's a ten foot tall basketball star.  They are driving in two golf carts, side by side.  Kevin says, "You know,  with Xebelta I didn't even need a blood test. With other blood thinners I need a doctor's appointment."

            Arnold, in the other cart, responds, "I love the convenience of Xebelta."

            The ten foot tall basketball star says, "Xebelta gives results without waiting."

            Race car driver replies, "And there's fewer side effects with Xebelta!"

            Kevin gives Arnold a High Five and the two golf carts drive off into the sunset.

            Then there's a lot of fine print at the bottom of the screen and a fast-talking voice says,"Xebelta has been known to cause liver damage, double vision, really stinky farts, plummeting blood pressure, hallucinations of Nazi skulls and dried tear ducts.  If you begin seeing crimson giraffes, call your doctor.  If you die suddenly try to call Nine One One before you hit the floor."

            I DID see that commercial.  I have not been taking Xebelta.  I think there's something wrong with the world.  Does Arnold Palmer need the money?  Maybe Kevin does, maybe he's got a raging coke habit or six greedy ex-wives, but I don't think the Nascar guy or the ten foot tall guy need money bad enough to appear in a commercial for a possibly lethal blood thinner.

            I have noticed an increase in commercials for pharmaceutical products, most of which may apply to an aging demographic. The increase is not slow, it's headlong and aggressive, with new marketing hitting the media almost daily.  There's an insidious message underlying all these new medications: we are sick.  We are getting sicker.  We need a lot of medication.  We need to be ever more vigilant for heart disease, cancer, stroke, hypoglycemia, diabetes, Gout, Porfiria and Recalcitrant Plebny.  Not only are we getting sicker but there are new diseases appearing, new diseases that need new medicines with which to fill the pockets of the Big Pharm industry.  Crohn's Disease is a favorite.  We've all heard of Crohn's Disease.  But what the F is Purple Flamyglitis?  What is Filinson's Syndrome?  Did these disorders appear out of the ethers? Did they migrate across the oceans from Asia and Africa? 

            I'm a little upset because I don't like subliminal marketing even when it's perfectly liminal.  The PRODUCT is in front of us, it's in the advertisement. The IMPLICATION works more subliminally, the constant elbowing in the guts with the concept that WE ARE SICK AND GETTING SICKER ALL THE TIME.

            I DO NOT LIKE THAT!

            Shame on you, Kevin Nealon. Shame!  You're supposed to be a comedian, not a pimp for Xebelto.

            I won't waste my time shaking my finger at Big Pharm.  They have no shame.

Your Content Will Resume In 30 Seconds....

Sept 29, 2012

          "Your content will resume in 30 seconds....".

          Over on the sidebar of my G-mail, there's a squib for an internet video.  It's called "Chef Says He Marinated Wife's Body Slowly". Before I can watch this delightful cooking tutorial, I get this pre-video advertisement.  
          This is a new feature in our lives, this pre-content advertisement. Everything I want to see or hear on YouTube, Vimeo, etc, comes spring-loaded with a product placement.  Frequently there is the courtesy of an opt-out click: I can skip it and go right to the video.  Nowadays, however, the "skip this ad" box is increasingly missing, and there's no choice but to wait through thirty seconds of being treated like an infant as the commercial for (chose at least one)Food, Cars, Vodka or Phones, throws its hook into the waters of your psyche.
            I want to see how ubiquitous this practice  has become.  I continue waiting for the cannibal chef video.

          "Your content will resume in 30 seconds."  First I have to watch a commercial from a product called Nautica, and I'm not quite sure what it is: A TV show, a body spray for men or a pitch for ocean resorts.  After thirty seconds of slick pitch I still don't know what the products is and I'm content NOT to know.
          THEN I get the details of the chef/murderer/cannibal. I close the page after about eight seconds.

          There are commercials at gas pumps and commercials on screens at urinals in public buildings.  Some day I'll buy a pair of pants and when I put my hands in their pockets a little hologram will appear at chest height saying, "The contents of your pockets will be available in thirty seconds."

          Monetizing.  I can monetize my web sites, have little ads

in the margins and get paid for every hit on my site.  Make some serious coin, oh yeah.

          I don't even know if this is a problem.  I've been watching commercials since I was a kid.  Our entertainment is funded this way.  It becomes a problem when our INFORMATION becomes funded this way because the funders get to decide what information we can access.

          There was a broadcast yesterday on Fox News, live, of a man blowing his brains out after a car chase.  "Get it off!  Get it off!," the shocked announcer barked, a second after the running man had pointed the pistol at his head and produced a vapor of blood and brain as he died in front of the cameras.  Any fool watching the live action could see what was about to happen.  The guy pulled a gun from his clothing.  He was in a desperate condition.  

          Your content will resume in 30 seconds.  Deodorant soap, aaaaah!  Cut to car chase, suicide, or cannibal chef who has re-visioned the term "eating out", or....any goddam grotesque thing in the world.   30 seconds.  Buy this new cell phone.  It replaces the one you bought last week that is now hopelessly out of date.  Siamese twins challenge courts for right to marry one another.

          This is our world.

          You want it? A fixer-upper, slightly used. 

          Your content will resume in 30 seconds.....but first the commercial: Planet Earth, a paradise in the Milky Way, comfortably nestled in the suburbs, not a black hole in the neighborhood.  Serene, bucolic. The Vacation Worth Having.

The natives are peaceful and friendly.....
          Your content will resume in thirty seconds.